Man Who Brutally Beat Gay Texas Man Said It Started As 'A Joke'

ERIC LACH – FEBRUARY 21, 2014, 2:41 PM EST

Before dawn on Labor Day, a 24-year-old Springtown, Texas man named Arron Keahey began chatting with another young man named Brice Johnson through a mobile app called MeetMe. The two had never spoken before, and after they had chatted for a little while, the conversation turned sexual. Keahey's MeetMe page indicated that he was gay. Johnson's page did not.

Johnson, who is now 19, faces a federal hate crime charge for what happened next.

According to documents filed this month in federal court in Texas, Johnson invited Keahey over to his home in Springtown, and the two of them exchanged cellphone numbers. They then sent each other explicit text messages, and Johnson urged Keahey to hurry on over. Keahey arrived at Johnson's house a few minutes before 5:30 a.m. Johnson met him outside. Shortly after that, court documents allege, Johnson "severely beat" Keahey, and then stuffed Keahey into the trunk of Keahey's own car.

Johnson drove Keahey's car to a family friend's house, and left Keahey in the trunk. Prosecutors believe that Keahey was bound with an electrical cord at this point, and say that as he came in and out of consciousness in the trunk, he yelled for help. People in the house told Johnson he had to take Keahey to medical care -- which he did, dropping Keahey off at an emergency medical services station at about 7 a.m. Johnson told a cop who drove him home that he had found Keahey beaten in the trunk of his own car, and had witnessed a black truck driving away from the scene. But that story quickly crumbled.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/brice-johnson-texas-hate-crime